


59 and 58

by Dee_Laundry



Category: House M.D.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-12
Updated: 2008-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:13:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee_Laundry/pseuds/Dee_Laundry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 59 days.  Post-ep for episode 4-16, "Wilson's Heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	59 and 58

It's been 59 days since "It was Amber," and 58 days since he turned the machines off, since she went to sleep without anger, and he counts them all, the days, the hours, because there's nothing else he can do.

He stands in the empty shower, pearls of water dripping from his pink heat-kissed skin, and there's nothing, only emptiness. The pipes wail their agony in a sudden strange moment, bereft, and he longs to keen with them, but there's only silence in his heart.

A towel wraps around him, rough on aching skin. He doesn't care if he's wet or dry but there's some instinct from childhood creeping up on him. _You'll catch your death of cold_ and wouldn't that be grand, to _catch_ death, to grab it as it goes past and squeeze it, pulp it until it screams, thriving, writhing under his palms. Fuck you, death, fuck you; you won't catch me unawares again.

Oh, god, he's empty and towel-draped, and talking to himself in a cold bathroom with nothing there except some pills she might have taken and some pills he won't take any more, and he ought to hie himself off to bed but that's even colder than in here. He's never said "hie," only "high," and he's not, either one, and sleep provides the only relief.

 _Relife_ , he thought "relife" at first and wouldn't that be great but it isn't and he hasn't slept in he doesn't know how long and maybe the best thing to do would be to lie down right here, Amber's fuzzy bathmat under his hip, and cool tiles on his face; it's a relief that his face is numbed while his hip is warm, and he really ought to have lain down here before.

Before.

Before and after.

This is after, 59 days since "It was Amber" and 58 days since he woke her up only to kill her and 58 days, and 58 days, and 58 days, and oh God he only wants to hold her again. Her hair, he used to hide himself in her hair, tangle and lose himself in her hair, her skin, the scent so exactly what he needed, and she didn't care if sometimes he wanted to curl up in her and stay.

She liked it.

She liked him.

She _liked_ him, such a small thing, but the em-fah-sis on the wrong sil-lab-buhl; she liked _him_. Who he was when he wasn't wishing he was someone else. Who he was in mistaken moments when his guard was down and he was forgetting that he ought to be better.

Cool tile, cold hair, he'll catch his death of cold and be oh so fucking glad of it.


End file.
